


Green Thumb

by elicitillicit



Series: Assorted Drabbles and Shorts [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4897435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elicitillicit/pseuds/elicitillicit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the time Draco manages to draw a horrified breath, his once merely irritatingly green balcony is now both irritatingly green and in complete disarray.</p><p>The thing at his feet makes a small chirping sound once the last crash dies away and Draco backs away as if burned.</p><p>It’s a girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green Thumb

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: ‘i found you sleeping on my balcony when i went out to water my plants why are you here and more importantly how did you get here we’re eighteen floors up’ au

Draco Malfoy _hates_ plants.

Unless he can eat them – preferably in something that _isn’t_ a salad – he thinks they’re pointless and time-consuming and _messy_. Yes, there is the whole _trees are important for the environment_ thing and the  _flowers are necessary for centrepieces_ thingand the  _bouquets are pretty much the way to go when you’re supposed to apologise for something and you have no idea what for_ , but those plants are reared for and dealt with by _other people_.

In other words, not him.

So, to be more precise, Draco Malfoy hates having to get up every morning a full fifteen minutes earlier (even on _Sundays!_ ) to care for the house plants that Pansy and his mother unloaded onto him during his housewarming party. To be fair, his mother also unloaded a blissfully comfortable cream-coloured Italian leather sofa, a seventy-inch TV, and a two-hundred dollar gift card to be used at Whole Foods. Pansy just unloaded the plants.

 _That’s what you get for associating with people named after flowers_ , he grouses sourly as he lugs his stupid fuchsia watering can (“Champagne Showers!” is emblazoned in bright yellow over its side – thanks for that, Theo) over from the kitchenette to the balcony doors and tries not to drip water all over his fluffy white shag rug.

Still grumbling, he drags the curtains back from the sliding glass doors – _the sunlight feels like an actual physical solid, omfg_ – unlocks them, and steps out onto his irritatingly green but refreshingly windy balcony.

And then he trips over a huddled bundle at his feet and the watering can flies into a potted ficus.

Which knocks into a dieffenbachia.

Which topples onto a fiddleleaf fig.

Which proceeds to fall on top of a neatly-lined up row of primly potted flowers.

By the time Draco manages to draw a horrified breath, his once merely irritatingly green balcony is now both irritatingly green _and_ in complete disarray.

The thing at his feet makes a small chirping sound once the last crash dies away and Draco backs away as if burned.

It’s a _girl._

 _Granted_ , he thinks critically as she sits up and glances around her with an expression that’s nothing short of complete dread, _she’s more hair than she is girl. And she’s more coat than both of that put together._

He clears his throat and reminds himself that he is _Draco Malfoy_ and that means that he should always sound cool. In control. Unflappable. Suave. Even if he’s in a woolly green bathrobe and cotton pyjamas with dragons all over them.

He takes a deep breath. 

“ _What?_ ” he squawks.  _So much for that_. But he just winces and keeps on going. “Who _are_ you? Are you homeless? Why are you on my balcony? How did you _get_ onto my balcony, Jesus-fucking-Christ, we’re on the _eighteenth floor-_ ”

The girl huffs dramatically. Slinging the coat over an arm, she begins to struggle to her feet. Draco automatically extends a hand, and she looks up warily before cautiously taking it.

Her hand is smooth and soft and _tiny_. Draco drops it like a hot potato once she’s managed to stand.

 _She’s_ tiny, he notes. The top of her head just clears the middle of his chest – so she should be about an inch shorter than that without all that ridiculous hair. She’s olive-skinned and big-eyed and dressed in a tight red dress that wouldn’t look out of place in a nightclub – but the sensible black flats that lie discarded in a corner of his balcony certainly would be.

“Well?” he demands, trying to look like he’s not at all interested in the light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. “Who, why, and how. In that order.”

She wrings her hands, looking faintly embarrassed, and Draco is suddenly aware that there are goose pimples peppering her bare arms.

He sighs.

“Come inside, have some tea, and do some _actual_ explaining.”

* * *

Her name is Hermione Granger, and she had _left a bad date_ by crabbing along a ledge that runs around the building. Draco ducks out onto his balcony again to see what _ledge_ she’s talking about, and his estimation of her nerve leaps about ten points while his assessment of her sense of self-preservation drops about twenty.

He arches a pale blonde eyebrow upon re-entering the apartment and tries not to look like he’s too bothered by the destruction just outside. “ _Leaving a date_? You couldn’t do that through the front door? And if it went as badly as to warrant a departure _that_ death-defying, surely you should have called the police or something? Or, you know, _woken me up when you knew that you’d have to run into me eventually_?”

She looks a little more than just _faintly_ embarrassed now, and stares resolutely into her mug of English Breakfast. “I, err. I was thinking of having a… a one night stand. And then when he was in the bathroom I couldn’t go through with it, and I didn’t want him to hear me leave and chase me down, so I just escaped through the open balcony doors.”

Draco snaps his mouth shut when he realises that he’s gawping. “You’re an _idiot_ ,” he informs her briskly.

She looks miserable. “I know. It’s just – I was so _furious_ earlier last night, you know?”

Draco gets the sense that there’s an Ex and a Story involved, and while he usually doesn’t actually give a shit about girls and their baggage, he feels unaccountably angry that someone has hurt this tiny, well-spoken, _frankly fit_ little human.

He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Trust the universe to dump a girl he’s high-key attracted to on the balcony of his bachelor pad and leave him wanting to ask her out without sounding predatory or creepy. He cracks open an eyelid – she’s now gulping the tea down like it’s the elixir of life (which is, coincidentally, how he feels about tea in general; maybe they’re made for each other?), and he’s fascinated by the long line of her throat.

She sets the mug down and sighs before looking back up at him. “May I use your bathroom? Also, let’s just go for breakfast. I suppose the likelihood of you having anything edible in here is negligible.”

Draco thinks guiltily about his mother’s gift card lying unredeemed in his cutlery drawer.

Then – “ _Breakfast_?” he repeats, dumbly.

She stretches and brushes a wisp of hair out of her eyes (they’re a remarkably clear shade of amber). “Breakfast.”

“You don’t even know my name,” he says, and the corners of her lips twitch upwards. “And it- it’s not _proper_ for me to take a girl I found out on my _balcony_ out for breakfast.”

“Who, why?” she asks. “In that order.”

“Draco Malfoy. And it’s just _weird_!”

She sighs again before standing. “You don’t look like a serial killer, I really am hungry, and I actually did go out last night looking to meet new people. New _decent_ people. So I guess I have. Now if you’ll excuse me, I _have_ to pee.”

She brushes past Draco and slips into his bathroom, shutting the door gently.

He stares after her, feeling dazed. He knows he’s being incredibly optimistic, but if this works out – _hell_ , if this goes beyond five dates – he’ll have to send Pansy and his mother gift baskets.


End file.
